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A federal judge in California has dismissed a proposed class-action labor lawsuit brought in late 2015 by a man who says that he has now worked for more than 20 years as a "judge" in Magic: the Gathering tournaments and demands to be paid.

In the court ruling, which was issued Wednesday, US District Judge Edward Davila sided with the defendant, Wizards of the Coast. The judge noted that, while Paul Yale’s years of experience to master all of the details of the popular card game and to become certified as a tournament arbiter takes time and extensive knowledge, “the complaint makes clear that Defendant’s program is purely voluntary and could be abandoned at any time.”

In other words, this is what Yale signed up for.

Judge Davila also noted that, while Yale and other Magic judges are occasionally compensated through playing cards, “there are also no allegations regarding wages” or “allegations regarding the number of hours Plaintiff was to ‘work’ as a Judge,” among other deficiencies in his lawsuit.

The judge, who was appointed to the federal bench in 2011 by President Barack Obama, left the door open for the case to be filed again by September 23 with new revisions.

Attorneys representing Yale did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

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Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is out now from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar